The Business of Broadway was founded by a team of early career producers dedicated to democratizing knowledge about the theatre business in order to transform the way artists and producers collaborate. Our goal is to pull back the curtain and demystify the many, many considerations - both artistic and brass tax - that must interplay to create a successful show. The Producing 101 Workshop will be taught by Erica Rotstein, Heather Shields, and Rachel Sussman.
Erica Rotstein is a theatre producer, talent manager, and educator. Her work is driven by a passion for music, and a desire to create opportunities for and collaborate with artists possessing talented minds and good hearts. As Director of Production for Broadway Across America, she plays a role in the development and production of Broadway musicals and helps manage BAA’s portfolio of theatrical investments. Select producing projects include: We Aren’t Kids Anymore, a song cycle by Drew Gasparini (premiering Spring 2020); Hundred Days by The Bengsons and Sarah Gancher, directed by Anne Kauffman (Lortel & Drama League noms for Outstanding Musical, hundreddays.org); Water for Elephants by Rick Elice and PigPen Theatre Co. (in development); and The Make It Fair Project, a PSA calling for gender equality in arts and entertainment (themakeitfairproject.com). Management clients include Drew Gasparini, The Bengsons, and the folk-pop band Saint Adeline. Erica is the Board Chair of Colt Coeur Theatre Company (coltcoeur.org) and holds an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business. www.ericarotstein.com
Heather Shields is an award-winning producer and theatre manager. She received her undergraduate degrees at the University of Richmond and later graduated from Columbia University with her Masters in Arts Administration. She made her Broadway producing debut in 2017 with the Tony Award-winning Bandstand and was most recently a lead producer on A Christmas Carol. She is also a producer on the Off-Broadway hit Puffs! (Or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic). Heather serves as the General Manager of the long-running, downtown sensation BATSU! NYC and opened BATSU! Chicago to critical acclaim in 2016.
Rachel Sussman is a Tony Award-nominated producer and a co-founder of The MITTEN Lab, an emerging theatre artist residency program in her native state of Michigan. She has worked with such companies as Audible Theater, The Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, Second Stage Theatre, RKO Stage, and Lincoln Center's American Songbook. Producing credits include: Heidi Schreck's Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony Award-nominated play, What the Constitution Means to Me (Broadway), the Obie Award-winning production of The Woodsman (Off-Broadway), and Eh Dah? Questions for My Father (Next Door at NYTW). In development: Suffragists by Shaina Taub and Devotion by Mark Sonnenblick. A past Women's Project Lab Time Warner Foundation Fellow, Rachel was also the recipient of the 2019 Geraldine Stutz T. Fellowship in Creative Producing, founded by Hal Prince in conjunction with Columbia University. She is a graduate of the Commercial Theater Institute and a University Honors Scholar alumna of NYU Tisch. www.rachel-sussman.com
Erica Rotstein, Heather Sheilds, and Rachel Sussman